Santorum: Obama Should Be Pro-Life Because He’s Black

Here’s what a Rick Santorum nomination would look like: A candidate who has no problem grabbing the third rail of race, and of running hard on social issues. In this January 2011 interview with CNS editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey, the former Pennsylvania Senator — now surging in Iowa — said that President Obama should oppose abortion because he’s black.

“He can’t answer that simple question, which is not a debatable question. I don’t think you’ll find a biologist in the world who would say that is not a human life. The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn’t want to answer — is that human life a person under the constitution?” Santorum says, in the interview. “Barack Obama says no, well if that human life is not a person then…I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.”

He’s expressing a relatively common view in anti-abortion circles: That the higher rate of abortions among African-Americans means that black Americans should be particularly hostile to the practice. It’s not an argument that’s had much traction, however, with black voters, and Santorum may not be the ideal messenger for it.